I am a Senior Political Contributor at Forbes and the official 'token lefty,' as the title of the page suggests. However, writing from the 'left of center' should not be confused with writing for the left as I often annoy progressives just as much as I upset conservative thinkers. In addition to the pages of Forbes.com, you can find me every Saturday morning on your TV arguing with my more conservative colleagues on "Forbes on Fox" on the Fox News Network and at various other times during the week serving as a liberal talking head on other Fox News and Fox Business Network shows. I also serve as a Democratic strategist with Mercury Public Affairs.

The Corporate Blackmailing Of America Is Now All the Rage

For the past week, I have watched with amazement as one restaurant chain after another—the very people who peddle the high caloric foods laden with the fat and sugar that have contribute so mightily to the nation’s health problems and the resulting costs—announced their plans to cut back on employee work hours.

Why?

Because an employee who works less than 30 hours a week is not an employee at all for purposes of the Affordable Care Act. Thus, by cutting back work hours for dishwashers, servers, bussers, etc., these franchised chain restaurant operations can skirt the requirements of Obamacare by providing employees with less work.

Leading the way is Papa John’s pizza pusher-in-chief, John Schnatter, who has gone public in a big way decrying the damage Obamacare would do to his business.

So serious is the problem—Mr. Schnatter would have us believe—that he is being forced to cut back working hours for his workers to avoid the crushing costs of providing his beloved employees and their families with a healthcare plan or, alternatively, raise the price of his pizzas by $.14 a pie.

This is a national crisis. I mean, when it comes to buying a pizza, that $.14 is surely a deal breaker!

But let’s keep in mind the choice Schnatter is really offering us.

By avoiding the health care reform law through paying less to his employees as a result of cutting back their hours, Schnatter is only increasing the costs that you and I pick up when his employees—having no health insurance—show up at the emergency room for basic care because they have nowhere else to go. Thus, while Mr. Schnatter is deeply distressed by the notion of taking some responsibility for the health of the very employees who make his business work so that he can earn millions, he is perfectly happy to have you and I subsidize his profits by allowing us to pick up the cost of health care for his workers because he will not.

The result of Schnatter’s behavior—along with the other restaurant owners playing this game—is to leave it to me to subsidize Schnatter’s profits despite the fact that I am not a customer for his pizzas that find to be mediocre at best. I will be left to pay the bills for his employees’ health care needs and, as a result, contribute directly to his bottom line.

Not a bad deal for Mr. Schnatter. He gets to profit from someone like me despite my choice to not spend a dime in one of his restaurants. Nice work if you can get it but hardly what we would typically view as an example of free enterprise.

While this “three nickels a pie” charge would, apparently, be the final straw in driving you into the waiting arms of your neighborhood, non-franchised pizzeria (a pretty good idea if you ask me) it turns out that things might not be so dire for poor Mr. Schnatter after all.

In a brilliant article by Forbes’ own Caleb Melby —by the way, I have never been prouder of one of my Forbes colleagues—Caleb breaks down the real costs to Papa John’s, using hard, cold math to reveal a little truth. We learn, for starters, that the actual cost of the Affordable Care Act to Mr. Schnatter’s business runs much closer to 4 cents a pizza than it does to 14 cents. Could Mr. Schnatter be setting himself up to make a few extra pennies per pie using Obamacare as an excuse or is he simply exaggerating his plight to sell his political narrative?

Certainly, this is not the first time a new cost item has resulted in a small increase in the price of Mr. Schnatter’s product. However, I strongly suspect that it is the first time he has chosen to politicize a cost increase to make an ideological point. As a result, Caleb’s article serves to expose Schnatter for what he really is—an ideologue who would gladly put a metaphoric gun to the head of his employees, using them as pawns in the effort to sell his own political beliefs which, in the opinion of this writer, have no more substance nor taste than the pizzas he peddles. And if he can make a few extra bucks in the process? It’s all good then, right Mr. Schnatter?

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Patronize whateve businesses you want, but you weren’t kicked by the greedy. YOu were kicked by the dimwits in Washington who assume to manage the world. Result: employers see a bad business climate and look elsewhere for opportunity.

Stop them, stop them!! …and then have round 2 of apoplexy when they just flat leave along with the jobs they provide.

Because of Citizens United the public doesn’t know how much dough Schnatter wasted contributing to Romney. Schnatter and Romney can whine and make up excuses but bottom line affordable insurance will be a gift. A gift to the individuals that would like to quit their jobs but it provides health benefits. Soon those individuals will have the option of having their own businesses with affordable health care. My neighbor the plumber, owner of his own business, can barely pay the premiums to cover his family and few employees. He is the hardest worker on the block. Always available to help. Why should he be going broke with the cost of health insurance and I get fantastic coverage from the large company where I work. Trader Joe’s has been providing health coverage for their part-timers and even profit sharing for decades. They have loyal employees and loyal customers that will go out of their way to shop. They have managed to stay profitable and expand. When folks move to a new area without a Trader Joe’s they cry. The same can be said for Whole Foods, Starbucks and Costco.

Thank you. When my good neighbor can get affordable health care hopefully he can invest the savings or help the economy by purchasing household big ticket items. He also doesn’t have the benefit of a nice retirement package and a matching savings plan. No one should struggle with the cost of health insurance or take the risk and worry and go without coverage. Early detection and preventative care will save lives and be cost effective. Anyone in doubt can listen to Ann Romney tell her story. Her breast cancer was detected at stage zero, that’s pre-cancer. That’s the earliest stage and can’t be detected by self exam but will be detected by a mammogram. She had day surgery and didn’t need chemo. Anyone that can’t see the cost & life saving benefits of ACA is hopeless.

Walter Robb has been the co-CEO for the past couple of years. I believe he is still proud of providing health plans to the employees of Whole Foods. John Mackey shares the title with Walter Robb. Mackey was expressing his personal opinion on health care and ACA.

No, Christine got it exactly wrong. The plumber’s business isn’t Trader Joe’s. Maybe the margins at TJ’s are good enough to pay for health care – they pay for them too, you know. And maybe a gov straightjacket will be just the ticket to drive the health care system into yet higher costs.. actually it has already started. Will any of you libs take responsibility for that? Of for getting rid of Obamacare if it flops? (Answer: you will blame it on others in the wildly unlikely event you admit it at all.)

The challenge of policy is to create an economic environment where it makes sense for companies to act like TJ’s of their own accord. Focusing on the stick – mandatory care – is the crack of authority so loved by the left, but it is a much more realistic and wise approach to use the carrot – not the usual liberal bribes, but stable and sensible laws that make planning possible and confidence probable.

“Papa John” makes over 2 million a year. He does that by deciding to cut employees hours so they can neither have medical benefits or earn enough to live. There are many who think this is wrong. I do not applaud the man.